


Moving goalposts

by dancinguniverse



Category: Life (TV), Standoff
Genre: Anticipation, Crossover Pairings, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-05
Updated: 2015-07-05
Packaged: 2018-04-07 17:30:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4271868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dancinguniverse/pseuds/dancinguniverse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You didn't see my house before, but it's got a table and a couch, and it's a lot better than it was." </p><p>Charlie's ready to have things in his life. Matt doesn't really get the why yet, but he's happy to help anyway. This started as a PWP, but ended up with some feelings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Moving goalposts

Charlie drives, of course, but Matt directs him back towards his own apartment. "You need to get some furniture. Your place creeps me out." The bare bones are there — kitchen table, a single sofa in one room — but the house is still echoingly empty, entire rooms unfurnished and bare. It's Charlie's house, so there's too much sunlight for it to be truly creepy most of the time, but Matt got legitimately lost once, getting up in the night and trying to find the kitchen for a drink of water. He still thinks he could have found his way back eventually, but he'd stumbled into three completely bare rooms by the time Charlie had gotten up to see what was taking him so long.

Charlie smiles at the road, which rushes by in the dark faster than is probably legal. Matt's hard pressed to mind. He likes Charlie's car as much as Charlie does. "I'm living a life free of clutter. And I do have a bed."

"I remember," Matt admits, stretching out an arm and rubbing his thumb over the side of Charlie's neck. "But it'd be nice to, I don't know, throw my coat on a chair instead of the floor when I come in."

Charlie tilts his head quizzically, not dislodging Matt's touch. "You want my first priority to be a coat rack?"

"A chair would work," Matt repeats, though he doesn't see this conversational gambit going his way. He hadn't started out very strong, and he doesn't care enough to figure his way out.

"You want me to buy a chair to use for a coat rack?"

Matt rubs one hand over his eyes, though his other remains cupped around the back of Charlie's neck. "You know what, just drive. I bought bananas yesterday, you can even stay for breakfast if you stop being such a smart ass."

Charlie's eyes crinkle in a smile, and he pushes down a little harder on the gas.

* * *

 

Matt pushes open the door to his apartment and drops his keys on the tiny hall table. "See? Useful," he points out, and Charlie nods in the particular wide-eyed, innocent agreement that guarantees he's still planning to be a dick about it. Matt pulls off his coat, tossing it over the back of the couch. "Not on the floor," Matt adds, since he's committed himself now.

"Did you bring me here just to show off your homemaking skills?" Charlie asks, nodding toward the pile of paperwork on Matt's kitchen table, the empty bottles and glasses on the coffee table, and Matt grins, stepping into Charlie's space.

"What do you think?" he asks, and kisses him. He feels Charlie smile against his mouth, and he pushes Charlie's jacket off his shoulders, moves onto his shirt buttons once Charlie takes over and starts freeing his own arms from his sleeves. Charlie's bent awkwardly while he struggles out of his jacket and Matt is fumbling half the buttons, but they keep trading wet, lazy kisses, even as Matt toes off his shoes, stumbling a bit. Charlie just lets the jacket fall to the floor anyway when he's done, and at the soft smack of the fabric hitting the floor, Matt breaks off the kiss, opening his eyes to meet Charlie's smirk.

"Sorry," Charlie tells him brightly. "Was there someplace you wanted that? You have so many chairs, I wasn't sure —" Matt cuts him off with another kiss and Charlie accepts this, leaning back against the back of Matt's couch and letting Matt lean forward into him. Matt goes back to unbuttoning Charlie's shirt, unhurriedly, because Charlie's mouth is warm and good to kiss, and because when he reaches for Charlie's cuffs, Charlie circles Matt's wrist in a gesture that is surprisingly sweet for a man who spent twelve years in prison.

Matt slides Charlie's shirt off his shoulders and down his arms, leaving him in just the tee shirt he wears underneath. He drops the button-down to the floor without a thought and heads for the bedroom, Charlie's fingers still tangled in his, and Charlie follows easily. "You know, your chairs are completely free of clothes. I'm starting to think you were just screwing with me."

Matt turns in the doorway and settles his hands on Charlie's hips. "All those empty rooms don't bother you?"

Charlie's face flickers, not quite a smile, but not quite anything else. "I enjoy open space."

And Matt, who's often an idiot, thinks about it for the first time: How a man who spent not just twelve years in prison, but a solid chunk of it in solitary, might feel about being hemmed in, even by such luxuries as furniture. And then he looks around at his cramped bedroom — no windows, the walls scant feet from the bed, the dresser that takes up half that space on one side, the laundry hamper and accompanying pile of clothes on the other side, and what had always seemed cozy suddenly looks stifling. Matt winces. "I — sorry. Are you okay here? We can go to your place, I was just being an asshole." But Charlie is shaking his head, a real smile back on his face, his eyes resting fondly on Matt.

"I'm good." He twines his fingers through Matt's, stroking along Matt's wrist, his palm, and his voice turns speculative. "You didn't see it before. The house has gotten a lot better. There's things in it now. Rachel made me buy the dinner table. Ted made me buy the couch."

"Well, only a dozen rooms to go," Matt agrees, a little warily. "And it's a nice couch." But Matt's made himself uncomfortable now, and he backs away. "Hey, you want a drink? I got beer." He's already in the kitchen before Charlie can respond.

Charlie follows him patiently, leaning in the doorway of the kitchen while Matt pulls two bottles out of the fridge and digs in the drawer for an opener, busying himself for a moment. He's never really able to forget who Charlie is. Matt was still LAPD when everything with Charlie went down, so even if they'd never crossed paths last month, never hit it off and started this thing that's still too new for Matt to call a relationship, Matt still would never have forgotten who Charlie Crews was. But it's fucking weird to date that guy, so Matt tends to put it out of mind.

He hands Charlie his beer, and they settle on the couch, turned toward one another, knees bumping. "So Rachel made you get the table?" he asks, reaching to kickstart the conversation again.

"I got rid of my car," Charlie answers, a non sequitur so complete that Matt pauses to make sure he'd heard the words correctly.

"You — Charlie, we drove here in your car."

Charlie smiles and drinks his beer, and when he lowers his hand, he rests the bottle on Matt's knee. And it's such a quiet, confident intrusion of Matt's personal space that he returns the spirit of the gesture almost without thinking, shifting to tuck his arm around Charlie, fingering the untucked hem of his tee shirt, the waistline of his jeans.

"My old car," Charlie clarifies, shifting closer on the leather cushion. Any closer and he'll be in Matt's lap. "It was full of bullet holes. Well," he corrects himself immediately. "My _old_ old car got run over by a tractor. Now I'm driving my old car. The one with the bullets was my new car. My point is I got rid of it, Matt. And you didn't see my house before, but it's got a table and a couch, and it's a lot better than it was."

Matt frowns. "Okay." He works his hand under Charlie's rucked up shirt, tracing absent circles into the small of Charlie's back, and pulls on his beer. Usually he doesn't mind Charlie's eccentricities, but sometimes he feels like he's on the wrong channel, is missing context or a translation, and he's not always sure how far to pursue it. Emily never minded when he pushed her, was all about open communication and understanding, and sometimes he couldn't tell what was a genuine conversation and what was some kind of training scenario. But Charlie keeps his own counsel sometimes, smiles and doesn't respond when Matt asks something he doesn't want to answer. Matt knows Charlie's life is a goddamn minefield of bad history and personal subjects, and he tries to avoid asking anything Charlie's probably been asked before while having a mic shoved in his face by a reporter.

So he doesn't ask about the Seyboldts, or Pelican Bay, or the settlement, or even his ex-wife. God knows he saw all the news when it happened, when Charlie went away and when he got out. But it still leaves him with gaps. Charlie, unlike Emily, hates Matt's working voice, senses it every time Matt lets it slip and shuts him down with a quirk of the mouth and a subject change, and Matt is left to blink and wonder what mess he’s stepped in.

Recently he's started wondering, though, if Charlie is really shutting him down, or simply answering somehow sideways to what Matt expected. He thinks he should be better at this. It's his job to listen after all. But Charlie is a puzzle on a whole new level. And apparently Matt should give his house a break.

"You're sure you don't want to go back to your place?"

Charlie finds this extremely amusing, judging by the look on his face, and he shakes his head. "I got rid of the car," he repeats, and leans forward, kissing Matt before he can question the logic of that reply. He's soft and slow, and Matt breathes out, curling his fingers against Charlie's back and nudging him even closer. Matt reaches out blindly for the coffee table, putting his beer down so he can slide a hand around Charlie's neck, kiss his way down Charlie's throat. Charlie tilts his head for easier access, letting out a long breath, and Matt savors the way it catches when his lips graze the hinge of Charlie's jaw.

He leans back and grabs the hem of Charlie's tee shirt, pulling it over his head and tossing it vaguely in the direction of Charlie's other shirt, and Charlie takes advantage of the moment to nudge Matt's knee aside and slide fully into his lap, slotting them together by tugging on Matt's belt loops, and then waiting expectantly, a faint smile still on his face.

"I like your car," Matt tells him, running his hands over newly bared skin, across Charlie's shoulders and down across his chest. He figures it's true, and it's as close as he can come to rolling with Charlie's conversational tacks and jibes. "Maybe hang onto this one a while?"

Matt drags his fingertips absently up Charlie's back and Charlie shivers in response, eyes falling closed as he arches into Matt's touch, tips his forehead into Matt's. Matt reverses the motion, trailing his fingers down Charlie's spine to the small of his back, and watches in fascination as Charlie's breath comes stuttering out of him in a long exhale. "I'd like to," Charlie murmurs, a little choked.

Matt leans in again, tilting his head to capture Charlie's lips in a kiss. Charlie's mouth opens easily under his, returning the kiss, and when Matt's thumbnail scrapes over his nipple Charlie rolls his hips into Matt with a little throaty sound. Matt is caught up in Charlie for a while before he notices how passive it all is, how Charlie doesn't move otherwise, his fingers threaded through Matt's belt loops tight and motionless, like he's hanging on. Finally Matt pulls back. "Charlie? Are you really okay?"

The dreamy smile on Charlie's face seems like an obvious answer, but his utter stillness is unfamiliar in Matt's experience. Charlie opens his eyes, blue and searing. "Very okay."

Matt resumes his light touch, fingertips tracing spirals on Charlie's skin, up his sides and across his shoulders, runs the back of two fingers across Charlie's cheek and watches him lean into it like a cat, eyes fluttering shut again. "You wanna participate?"

"Can we keep on —" Matt's fingers are still moving, drifting across Charlie's back again, and when he absently drags a blunt thumbnail up Charlie's spine it makes him huff out a soft breath, twitch and shake his head. "This?"

Truthfully, just watching Charlie react is working really well for Matt. He drags his fingertips across Charlie's ribs, watches gooseflesh rise at his touch and then smooth away when Charlie shivers again. Under Matt's hands, Charlie inhales carefully, a man clearly timing his breaths intentionally. "You like it slow?"

"I like... anticipation," Charlie breathes out, and sways a little when Matt presses his lips against the column of Charlie's throat, fingers the curve of Charlie's ear. Charlie's fingers tighten against Matt's hip, then, purposefully, uncurl again.

"Okay, but on the bed," Matt agrees, pulling them both to their feet and backing Charlie into the bedroom with short kisses, hands on his hips, until he's pressed gently down onto the mattress. "And less clothes."

He pushes Charlie's pants down, sliding down the bed as he goes, trailing kisses along Charlie's stomach, his navel, slowing to press his lips into the hollow of Charlie's hip. "Matt," Charlie breathes, a warning or a plea.

"Trust me," Matt murmurs, lingering, and sucks a series of soft kisses into the skin of Charlie's thigh. His left hand drifts down to stroke lazily along Charlie's calf, his right stretching up to trace nonsense symbols into Charlie's wrist, while Charlie's fingers twitch against Matt's palm.

He noses in closer, dropping kisses as he goes, carefully lavishing attention to every piece of Charlie's body except for the one vying most for his notice. He finds a particularly sensitive patch of skin just inside of Charlie's right hip, and Charlie bucks up, sucking in a sharp breath.

Matt pushes him down gently with a flat hand, glancing up to see Charlie flushed red and a little wild-eyed. "Good?" Matt asks, kissing the same spot as before, and this time Charlie lets out a little moan, drawing one knee up slightly and then straightening it out, his whole body tensing and relaxing.

"I may start to beg in a few minutes," Charlie admits breathlessly, voice light. "Don't listen to me. Just keep doing this."

Matt grins and, still watching Charlie's face, presses one lingering kiss into the base of Charlie's cock. Charlie jerks again but Matt pulls back, continuing his long slide down Charlie's body while Charlie makes a high pitched sound. Charlie's thighs get his attention, the inside of his knee, and then, because he feels like he's drifting too far away, he brings Charlie's knee up, so he can kiss around his Achille's tendon and still reach up to run his hands over Charlie's where they're fisted tightly in the sheets.

He stretches Charlie's leg out and begins a slow path back up, and Charlie whines when Matt pauses over his lower left rib, until Matt ghosts the back of two fingers along the length of Charlie's cock, and the whine becomes a groan when Matt presses harder, finally providing some friction. Charlie tries to roll towards him, but Matt pushes him back into the mattress, though he does take pity enough to throw his leg over Charlie's, his thigh providing just enough pressure to hold Charlie off. He tries to rock up against the touch, to no avail.

Matt drags his lips over Charlie's collarbone, rubs his fingers through Charlie's short hair, and returns to the beginning, dragging blunt fingernails in a featherlight trail along one shoulder blade and down Charlie's back. Charlie writhes underneath him, openly panting now, and Matt takes advantage of his open mouth to suck hard on Charlie's lower lip. "I thought I was going to hear begging," Matt reminds him, sliding back over to nose under Charlie's ear, taste the soft skin there. Charlie's arms twitch. He has a white knuckled grasp on the bedsheets, and Matt isn't sure which is them is more eager for him to let go.

"Wanting things," Charlie gasps, "isn't Zen."

"Not a realistic philosophy, if you ask me," Matt manages, and curls his tongue around the lobe of Charlie's ear. Charlie twists, rubbing his face against Matt's, the only contact he's allowing himself. Matt's voice isn't quite steady either, and as much Charlie's squirming and panting beneath him, Matt's own erection is pressed hard into Charlie's hip, because Charlie shaking apart like this is one of the hottest things Matt's seen in his entire life. "C'mon, Charlie," he murmurs, dragging his lips over Charlie's throat. He skims his fingers down Charlie's chest to his belly, reaching just inside the curve of his hip before wandering off again, his hands never stopping. "Tell me I can really touch you. Tell me you're ready, tell me I can —" he rubs himself against Charlie's thigh, and it's so shockingly good he loses his train of thought for a moment, concentrating very hard on holding himself still, because as good as this is, he wants Charlie's hands on him at least before this night is over. "Charlie," he says roughly when he can speak again, and pulls Charlie's mouth back towards his, biting down hungrily.

"Okay," Charlie gasps. "Matt, please, let me —"

"Yeah," Matt agrees breathlessly, and reaches down to wrap his hand firmly around Charlie's cock. He's wet and hard, velvetly soft and hot to the touch, and Matt only gets in a half-dozen strokes before Charlie is bucking and gasping, his hands finally closing on Matt's arms, fingers gripping tightly, digging into Matt’s shoulders. He kisses Matt desperately, his face, his neck, his lips, whatever he can reach, and Matt shifts so that he can grasp his own cock as well as Charlie's. Charlie is still pulsing in Matt's hand, and Matt strokes them both at the same time, pulling Charlie through his orgasm as Matt builds quickly toward his own.

Charlie is panting hot in Matt's ear, his fingers threading through Matt's hair and pulling him close, tugging just like Matt likes, and finally, finally he reaches down and takes Matt in hand. Matt comes with a shuddering, surprised gasp, his open mouth pressed into Charlie's neck. He moans as Charlie's deft fingers work him through to the end, collapsing to lie boneless and draped over Charlie, catching his breath while he listens to Charlie's heartbeat slow from a gallop to a gentle beat.

Later, they've cleaned off and Charlie is sprawled out on his back again, one arm tucked behind his head. Matt tangles their legs together and burrows in until his face is pressed into Charlie's neck, and Charlie wordlessly resettles himself until Matt's arms can wrap around him securely. Matt's already drifting off by the time Charlie muses, "You should help me pick out some chairs."

"It's your house," Matt mumbles. "I was just giving you shit. Do what you want."

Charlie reaches to where Matt has a loose hold on his shoulder and picks up his hand, stroking it a bit and then kissing the back of it before laying it down again. "I think I'm getting used to it. I think some more things in it would be nice."

And maybe it's exactly because Matt's sleepy enough that following the thread of the conversation is becoming difficult, but Matt hears Charlie's words stripped of context, and they take on a new meaning. Or rather, their only context is Charlie himself, and Matt struggles upright in bed, coming awake.

"Charlie, have we not been talking about your house this whole time? Were we even talking about your car? Are we talking about you?"

Charlie blinks at him in the dark. "I find metaphors lose a lot of their potency when you explain them," he offers in lieu of an answer. "Also everything I said about my house was true. And my cars."

Matt slumps back down, burrowing in even tighter than before and closing his eyes on a well timed yawn. "Fine," he says around it. "I can be a thing. Do I have to be a chair though? Why can't I be a car?"

"I don't need another car," Charlie explains patiently.

Matt grumbles, but he rubs his face into Charlie’s shoulder rather than argue, and falls asleep to Charlie’s fingers stroking through his hair.

**Author's Note:**

> If anyone even reads this, you have my eternal love and adoration for participating in this double defunct, crossover shipping hell. Please come talk to me on tumblr where I am also dancinguniverse.


End file.
